ICAEW tells 215 firms to improve AML practices

ICAEW has published its anti-money laundering (AML) supervision report for 2023/24 in which it revealed 215 firms have been asked to improve their AML practices and 39 were sanctioned.

The institute carried out 1,088 monitoring visits across its supervised firms during the year, with 80.7% assessed as compliant or generally compliant. It recently made changes to its supervision methodology, to focus on the effectiveness of AML policies and procedures rather than their technical compliance or existence, with compliance remaining high.

However, some 39 firms were sanctioned and fined a combined total of £92,025, and one member was excluded.

ICAEW supervises 11,000 member firms in relation to money laundering. It regularly produces resources to support its supervised population, including risk bulletins, webinars and articles, as well as its award-winning anti-money laundering training film, All Too Familiar, produced in collaboration with HMRC.

The institute uses a range of tools and methods in its approach to AML supervision and targets its resources where the risk is highest.

Duncan Wiggetts, ICAEW chief officer, Professional Standards, said: “As this report shows, we spend a lot of time and effort helping the firms we supervise to understand how they can avoid becoming unwitting professional enablers of money laundering. To ensure continuing improvement, we decided this year to raise the bar for a firm to be ‘compliant’, so it is pleasing, in that context, to see continued high levels of compliance. The report also shows that, where firms and individuals fall below the standards we expect of them, we will not hesitate to take enforcement action against them.

“In order for bodies such as ours to continue investing in resources and capabilities to improve our supervisory work, we call on the Government to issue the long-delayed feedback statement into the future of AML supervision and reconfirm the important role which professional bodies should play in this area.”